Matchplay Doubles 2012

The PTBC Tour's first outing of 2012 was to Charrington Bowl, Tolworth on the WTBA Atlanta 38ft Championship lane pattern.
Eleven teams bowled in the Saturday squad, with Lee Chatfield and Lee Miller leading the pack going into day two.
With weather warnings coming in, and snow falling from the Sky's over England by the end of Saturday's squad there became an increasing doubt for many as to whether the tournament would go ahead. It is testimony to the dedication of those taking part that every single team made their best effort to get to the tournament with only four teams being beaten by the appalling conditions.

Whilst some teams were delayed, the tournament got underway with just a 45 minute delay and the scores from Saturdays play were shown to be not too dissimilar from the field of Sunday.

The top 24 teams would qualify for the finals with the top four teams earning byes through to later rounds.

The 24th place cut was tight with John Wallin and Allan Meades just missing out by 4 pins, having made the journey to the bowl as they played their squad on Saturday. The venerable pairing of Lee Cocker and Cliff Dew amassed a 3014 total to become the cut and just a pin behind Junior Team England pairing Verity Crawley and Hannah Frost.

The first round of finals saw the Poole Posse go home early as Steve Thornton and Matt Chamberlain were defeated by left-handers Damian Gray and James Tidd (385-337), whilst Chris Oates and Jamie Bottomley were dismissed by the aforementioned Lee Cocker and Cliff Dew.

Final Round two saw the third and fourth seeds enter the mix, and no sooner did they arrive they were sent packing. Some high scoring from Gray/Tidd did the damage to Junior Team England's Beth Hedley and Autum Chamberlain (495-435) and JTE's Chris Lam and Elliot Crosby rid the bracket of Angie Brown and Chris West 384-362).

In the quarter finals, second seeds Lisa John and Hayley Rumkee were unable to oust the already warmed up Ash Iacona and Adam Cairns (364-398), though top seeds Richard and Ray Teece beat Adam Maher and James Footner (471-383) into the Semi Finals.

Skipping through to the final itself, a very nip and tuck affair took place with Iacona/Cairns against the Teece brothers. Going into the tenth frame there were just a few pins seperating the two teams, but a missed single pin spare from Cairns saw Ray Teece take advantage and a 6 pin win to take the doubles title (366-360).

The tournament manager would in particular like to thank all the teams and staff at the bowling centre for achieving the impossible and allowing the tournament to go ahead, almost without any detrimental effect from the treacherous weather.